Fog in the Apple Store spreads to brain...

Uck. I'm so out of it today. I think it may be the gratuitous number of multi-flavored over-sized Swedish Fish I stuffed down my throat on my lunch break covering my mind in a sugary blanket of "Wanna Go Home"ness. Also, the Big Boss is back from 10 days in Europe and, as expected, terrorizing the office drones, so the general mood in the gallery is one of stiff-legged, wide-eyed anxiety. Doesn't make for a fun work environment or one that lends itself to good moods. And I've had just the appropriate number of itch-inducingly annoying phone calls, placed at just the perfect intervals (ie, the phone is silent for five minutes, but the moment I take out the lukewarm pasta I've been trying to eat for two hours and get a forkful of spaghetti perfectly twirled around the fork, the phone rings. Or, after I've managed to get said delicious eggplant-tomato saucey deliciousness into my mouth and am in cheek-bulging Italian food heaven, three calls come in at once, and each and every one of them is an elderly individual who needs something but can't quite remember what it is, and oh but they're calling from Bumfuck, Nowhere and they were just... um... putting down their knitting and thinking about... oh, what was it now? Wait, is this the lawyer's office? Ugh.) to push me over the brink of annoyance into glaring and swearing at the phone every time it rings, regardless of whether there is anyone in the gallery to hear me. I didn't get quite enough sleep last night and I may or may not have irresponsibly indulged in some olive-juice flavored vodka with a splash of vermouth last night. And I might have, possibly, spent the last two days being wildly productive and energetic and it's possible I've burned myself out. So it's just a blah kind of day.

Also, the weather is the kind made specifically to encourage people to lounge around in T-shirts and mesh shorts and eat junk food and do nothing productive. So the fact that I'm in a pair of stylish flats, an A-line skirt and a very low-cut top that has elicited all kinds of comments from street vendors today does not improve my mood. I want my pajamas! But, nonetheless, two points of note:

1) On my way to work this morning I went by the Apple Store at the corner of the park. You know, the big glass tourist trap cube? I walk by every day and chuckle to myself about the people taking pictures, because while I understand that the thing is a feat of modern architecture and stuff, I also know that once you walk down those extremely treacherous glass stairs, the scene below is total mayhem. Older men from Wisconsin walking around below the stairs, just staring vacantly upwards through all the glass to the open sky above, bumping willy nilly into everything; children from West Virginia running about helter-skelter, screaming and pummeling each other; bedraggled Apple employees trying to answer questions from ten people at once... Total chaos.
Well, today I walked by and laughed even harder because, for once, the fracas going on down below was actually showing at the sleek, sophisticated street level. It was so humid and warm outside, and so ridiculously temperature-controlled inside the store, that the glass was steaming up. It was like walking past a lone car in the very dark back corner of the parking lot, which is rocking just so slightly, and the windows are all fogged up in there. And you laugh to yourself because you know that inside there are two very sweaty, probably fumbling and confused, frantically humping adolescents getting it on in their parents' Jetta. And that, my friends, is exactly what we think of tourists in the Apple Store.

2) I attended Nerd Nite last night with my most ass kicking friends, Ginn and Paco. (I'm not going to explain it - my hands hurt, but here. It's pretty self-explanatory. Well, we all got drunk and very excited and Paco suggested that I do a Nerd Nite presentation on swinging. Which got my gears going. A Nerd Nite presentation is only 10-20 minutes long, only needs a presenter and a basic Power Point presentation to work, and is really probably pretty easy to put together if you know what you're talking about. And I do. Oh, I do know what I'm talking about. But here's the really cool thing - by doing a presentation on swinging culture today and where it's come from and what it means and what I've learned, I'll basically have to take all the mountains of research and notes and interviews and write-ups I have accumulated, and... dum dum dum... put them into some semblance of order! And not just order, but cohesive, easy to digest, and very much condensed order. It'll be like a synopsis of my book. Which is exactly what I need for my book proposal in order to sell it, and what I need so that I know what the hell it is I'm trying to do in general with this book!
So, I e-mailed the host this morning, and voila! I'm Nerd Nighting!

September 18 is the tentative date. May change. I'll keep you updated.

Snowflakes and geriatric gunmen...

I'm having a strangely racially charged week.

Yesterday, I was walking up Melrose Avenue near my house, on my way home from meeting with an artist and grabbing a few things at the grocery store in the midst of a desperate pee-haze. (You know, the total inability to concentrate on anything because of how badly you have to pee? It had been four hours and I was getting desperate. I went on a mad dash through that grocery store, man.) I was barreling down the sidewalk at quite a clip, focused on getting to my place and putting down my bags, when a nicely dressed older black man walked by: "Good evening, beautiful," he said, then continued on his way. No big deal. I smiled a little at him and kept walking. I've gotten used to the occasional comment, particularly when on Melrose. The tone of most of them is of appreciation, a little lewdness, but whatever. I mean, I look at people on the street, and I usually wouldn't have audacity to say anything to someone I found attractive, but that's really on me for being shy. I don't mind people telling me I look good, so long as they're not mean, overtly rude, or in some way hindering my progress down the sidewalk.

About a block later, two guys came out of a store and took up positions on the sidewalk directly in front of me, walking verrrry slowly. They were both black, really tall, dressed nicely, and obviously in no hurry to get anywhere. I, on the other hand, was desperate to get to my bathroom, so I moved up on the outside to scurry around them. As I drew up next to them, we walked three abreast for a few seconds, and I noticed the guy closer to me do a very conspicuous up-and-down once over of me. Again, this didn't bother me, since he wasn't trying to touch me or stop me in pursuit of relief.

But then, as I started to pull away in front, he said very quietly: "Hey, snowflake." It was an almost monotone, loud enough for me to hear it but not a shout for others to hear. I couldn't quite tell if it was a flat-out racial slur meant to hurt my feelings, or some sort of hurtful come-on. Either way, I had no idea what to do.

What I wanted to do was stop, wheel around, and lay on some really biting insult, or at least a witty reprimand for his behavior. Something that just fed his own medicine back to him. But, as is my wont, I couldn't come up with anything because my brain had shut down when he'd said it in the first place. I could have turned and blatantly glared at him, but then other people might have thought I was the bigot.

So I settled for just ignoring him and walking away a little faster. The comment itself didn't bother me too terribly much - not everybody can be nice all the time, and it really has nothing to do with me. But the more I thought about it, the more amazed I became. That's the first time anyone has ever said something overtly and meanly racist to me, or at least the first time it's been overt enough that I noticed it. I can be pretty spacey on the street sometimes.

But, really, I've been in the minority demographically in every neighborhood I've lived in since high school. That's eight years, baby. During college I was living in the Bronx, then I went to the reservation for a year, and then even in Chicago I was living in the gayest neighborhood in the city. Then I came back to New York, where I've lived in Harlem and now the Bronx again. And sure, I've gotten some weird looks and some rude stares, and sure I've heard people giggle as I walk by, and sure I get comments on my ass from time to time, but I've never had someone just come out and tell me before that they didn't like me for my white skin. It's weird. I don't know if that's a testament to people generally being nice, or how far we still have to go. I mean, imagine the uproar if a black person were walking down the street in TriBeCa and somebody made a snide remark about his/her race. Can you imagine? It'd be big news. Nobody can do that these days. We've come pretty far on that front.

But hey, I'm just whitey. Little pale chick in the Bronx. Fair game, right? After all, I'm encroaching on someone else's territory. This isn't my hood. Right? On the one hand I can understand frustration and even people vaguely disliking me on the street. I really AM a representative of my race, and as such, can be perceived as a harbinger of higher rent, property values skyrocketing, Starbucks on the corner where Cookie's used to be. People who can't afford to pay out the nose for the posh new SoBro neighborhood could, in ten years, be forced to move even further from the city because of people just like me. So, sure, if someone sees me coming and feels a little ping of mistrust, there's nothing I can do about that.

But, wait! What the hell? What's going on here, is this some weird urban mutation of Stockholm Syndrome? Bullshit! Nobody in this country should ever be made to feel unwelcome ANYWHERE. I mean, with the possible exception of certain situations, like a woman in a cocktail dress and stilettos wandering into a subway homeless camp. But in public? On the street? In daylight? I don't give a shit if you think you know something about me because of how I look, it doesn't give you the right to bother me with your prejudice. That's not right. I have as much of a right to live in the South Bronx as anybody else and fuck you for having an issue with where I make my home. I LIKE my neighborhood. I shop there, I'm probably going to join the co-op there. I contribute. I pay taxes.

I should've just as quietly and calmly intoned: "Darkie" at that guy. A term so antiquated and ridiculous it would either have turned on a lightbulb over his head about how equally ridiculous it was for him to be mean to me, or thrown him into a rage and turned me into a victim of a hate crime. But at least I'd have felt better.

As it is, I'm just left scratching my head about how to feel.

So I come to work today and see the front page of the Wall Street Journal: "White Supremacist Suspected in Shooting at Holocaust Museum." And a picture of an 88-year-old man being led away in cuffs for fatally shooting a security officer at the Holocaust Museum in DC. Come ON, people. This would be ludicrous, if someone hadn't been killed, and it's just heartbreakingly sad as it is. Can you imagine, in the goldest of your golden years, at 88 years of age, being so filled with hatred for other people just because they don't have the same heritage as you? Forget rent hikes, forget property values, forget paying taxes. Here's a man who, overcoming the many obstacles to so doing, has survived for nearly nine decades on this war-torn planet, who one would hope would be wearing slippers on his porch and enjoying a nice Scotch while his dog sleeps on his lap, has instead let himself fall so deeply into arbitrary malice that he's going to go out this way? This is why people calling each other names on the street is so bad.

It's not just an issue of someone being rude, it's an issue of teaching people to live their lives in love with the world and the people in it. The world might be a fucked up place in a whole lot of basic ways, but the last thing it needs is those of us living in the wealthiest, most bountiful and diverse place in the world to spend their days eyeing each other with suspicion and seething hatred. Life is way, way, way too short to spend it feeling bad about differences that only run skin deep, and even about differences that run deeper. So people look different, think differently. So what? Calm down, people. Take an afternoon off. Go to the park. Watch some squirrels playing. Look into the eyes of a carriage horse. Look into the eyes of someone on the street with love, compassion, and the assurance that the two of you are composed of the same stuff and are the results of the same millions of years of diligent evolution and the lucky winners of the prize of capitalizing upon the tiny, infinitessimal chance that you could both have been formed of non-living matter in order to now be standing there, facing each other, having survived so long and come so far. It's incredible, isn't it? It's amazing when you look out into the street, or into space, to realize the chances of you being where you are right now, next to the person beside you, no matter what he looks like or where he comes from. Just. Calm down.

Bizarre-O Singing Guy POSES A DILEMMA...

...but, here's the thing, readers. In exchange for my valuable advice about where to find weirdos on the street, today I am asking for something in return. As I was considering how to describe Bizarre-O Singing Guy's location, I considered mentioning The Art Students League, which is right across the street from Lee's and Singing Guy. I've checked it out before and it's a very enticing place - low cost art education that doesn't give you a degree, but teaches you what you want to know, offers cheap figure-drawing and -painting classes as well as full programs of study and certification, and generally is a great fixture of the community.

This got me thinking about whether I should invest in taking some classes there. I'd really like to, even if it's just one class a week, to keep myself working artistically. Deadlines work for me better than musings like, "I should really draw the characters from 'A Wocket In My Pocket' and put them all over the apartment in the appropriate places... someday..."

But THIS got me thinking about how I have virtually no time to even finish my musings, much less put them into action, and how the number of projects I'm working on now should kind of preclude me from starting new ones on a whim. Which led me to thinking about how I really need to learn how to prioritize a litte and focus more on the things that need finishing, so I can get to the things that need starting. Which led me to the realization that in general, in life, I have a serious problem with commitment to ANYTHING. I have a desire to dedicate myself with toal abandon to every one of my friends, every hair-brained scheme, every project and every piece of art that I have, which sounds great, but only works in my head. In reality, I never have enough time or energy for everything, which leads me to having not enough time and energy for ANY thing.

Which led me to realize that this whole 'writing a book' thing is stressing me out enormously, mostly because I can't seem to pin down the appropriate time in my schedule for leg work like researching, writing, and organizing. I want it to happen, and I can't really expect it to if I continue on the general fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants course I've been on. Which led me to realize that I have to figure out what I'm doing and try to actually commit myself to a plan of action. Ideally, I'll be able to get a lot of work done at the gallery this summer, when all the rich people and gallery directors are out of town and I have less to do than usual (which is saying a LOT, let me tell you). But generally speaking, I can't really accomplish a whole hell of a lot during the workday because I am, even on the best of days, getting interrupted regularly by the telephone and visitors to the gallery. I can write, but I end up repeating myself and being very unfocused and then just having to rewrite later on when I'm not at work. Which is a strategy, but it's not the best.

I really want to try to dedicate myself to this book in the evenings after work, but it can be supremely difficult with the number of other responsibilities I have, including, you know, laundry, dishes, and general hygiene. Not to mention a social calendar, two other part-time writing gigs, a full-time gig, and the billion incidental happenings that come along with living in the city. I haven't had any luck with the efforts I've made so far, beyond a few stops and starts here and there, which are always aborted after a few weeks due to some new scheduling dilemma. But I want this thing to move forward, to research, to write, to get an agent, to sell the thing, to write the thing, to have a BOOK.

I ALSO really want to start taking night classes toward a career that might actually be a career in illustrating/publishing. Mostly I just want to know how to do something besides answering phones and reading books, and to have a piece of paper saying as much, and even have the option of having a job in a field that interests me instead of this piece of crap whittling away my days trying futilely to write the book that will get me out of here - which, in reality, probably will NOT get me out of here but just earn me a few grand, optimistically. There's a publishing certificate program in publishing that has a specialization in illustration at CCNY, which is inexpensive and which I could do on my own time, at night, in a few years. If I don't get the book done, or if I do and it doesn't get me out of here, this certificate could at least help me switch into an actual career if I wanted it to. BUT it would require the sacrificing of even more of my evenings to something besides the book.

So, here's my grand question to you guys:
Should I keep the certificate program on the back burner for now and try to force myself into a commitment to this book, then maybe take classes AFTER the book things is over, either through failure or being published?
Or, should I just sign up for classes, sacrifice the evenings, and hope that the book can continue to grow while I do it? I mean, the added stress on my schedule might actually help me budget the rest of my time so I can work more effectively on the book... MAYBE. Or maybe I'll be so stressed I'll have a total nervous breakdown and finally get the two months of rest in a mental ward I've always wanted... win-win?


I really can't make up my own mind here... Help!

Bizarre-O Singing Guy...

I have been feeling rather beaten down lately - had a whirlwind weekend with two visitors in my tiny apartment, a fantastic birthday celebration, much walking around, and the beginnings of a sickness which has only begun to abate today. Hence the lack of posts, and also a lack of attention to detail, which sadly made my adventursome weekend a blur and didn't allow for me remembering any of the funny, quirky bits I saw around the city as I walked ALL over it.

So today, now that I'm feeling better, I was very excited on my lunch break to head over to Lee's Art Shop on 57th between 7th and 8th. I love this store because it is a very full-service, 4 story, serious art store where one can find all manner of supplies for virtually any art project, but it is also a trap for little old ladies and middle-aged housewives with too much time on their hands and a penchant for shiny things. I am, apparently, both an artist (heh!) and a middle-aged lady at heart, because I can be walking by that place with my sights set on the Duane Reade down the block for, like, nail files or something, and get drawn into Lee's without even noticing it's happening, while my brain chants "Sparkly stuff, sparkly stuff, sparkly stuff," and suddenly I'm buying $50 worth of Mod Podge and a fridge magnet with a Roald Dahl quote on it...

Anyway.

So today I was on my way over there to look for invitation cards and standing outside, as he usually is, was Bizarre-O Singing Guy. I suddenly realized I've never written about him on this blog, and that is a damn shame, because as far as strange New York specific people go, he is right up there with the best of them. Bizarre-O Singing Guy is a middle-aged to elderly gentlemen of uncertain ethnicity and nationality who stands outside Lee's every weekday and sings to himself and/or passersby. His ethnicity and nationality are uncertain because his song does not seem to be comprised of words, or if they ARE words, the language he's singing them in is so alien to me that I can't even venture a guess as to what it could be. I have a feeling it's a "speaking in tongues" kind of thing, musical style. He actually has quite a powerful voice, if not an operatic one, and could probably do a mean Indian restaurant zitar theme if he wanted to, but he doesn't seem interested in making money. He's not out there singing for change. He's giving out pamphlets. And here's where he gets sneaky: those pamphlets have a picture of a gift-wrapped box on them, and they say "A Gift For You." So of course I eagerly snatched one up one day, equally charmed by his bizarre-o singing and eager to see what kind of valuable present lay in store for me inside the folded piece of paper.

Well, let me tell you, there was no gift in there, friends. Just really badly written drivel about accepting Jesus Christ into my heart and such. Not that I have anything against the idea of Jesus in my heart, exactly, I just can't stand badly reasoned and even more badly written proselityzing. If you're going to write it down, at least make sure it makes sense. The only gift I got was Bizarre-O Singing Guy's song.

But despite his crafty pamphlet passing, I have a soft place in my heart for this dude. He's fun and he seems to be enjoying himself and he's not even particularly pushy. So more power to him. So today as I passed him I realized that I had to write a blog entry about him, and encourage my readers to go check him out sometime. If you ever happen to be in midtown, near the Brooklyn Diner, you should be able to find him during normal business hours.